Smart digital podoscope for foot deformity assessment

摘要

Foot deformity is a common problem among Thai people. It is resulted from various causes. The deformity may lead to pain and discomfort of feet and legs. The foot condition can be evaluated using plantar pressures and foot deformity measures, depending on the therapists. This paper presents a design of digital podoscope, a screening tool for patients with foot deformity. Built on a commercial optical scanners, our design is smaller than the camera based system. The scanned foot image is color-mapped by a software to calculate the foot index. The system was tested with twenty-five participants who have been diagnosed with foot abnormality. The data show a comparable results with the standard method. Our further study is to develop an algorithm for automatically assessing the deformity and calculating the foot index.